Seeing
“Find a bit of beauty in the world today. Share it. If you can’t find it, create it. Some days this may be hard to do.” –Lisa Bonchek Adams
There have been many hard things going on in our world, and I truly love the quote above, and it rings so true. A bit of beauty can lift us from the mundane, from the drudgery, from the crueler aspects of living. What sweet relief.
I also love Annie Dillard, a great teacher in learning to see.In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Dillard writes about how, as a young child, she would hide a penny in the roots of a sycamore or a gap in the sidewalk, then draw arrows in chalk toward it, sure that discovering the copper coin would make someone’s day. Years later she could see powerful symbolism in that innocent expectation. Below is an insightful paragraph from Dillard:
There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But—and this is the point—who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kid paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
biscuit's space | The blog of photographer Katherine Carver 